Notes: Real life is real busy, but also real good. Have some happy vibes!
The Second First Date
Jim pulled up in front of Spock's box house just as the front door opened and smiled nervously when Spock got into the car.
"So, you going to tell me where we're headed yet?" he asked.
"You will see," came the enigmatic response.
He'd had some very confusing clues for this. They were eating out, but Jim's usual t-shirt and jeans would apparently suffice. It was a busy place, but they would not be disturbed. And if Jim brought the bike, it would be stolen, but the car would be quite safe.
They didn't speak much, apart from Spock giving directions, until Jim pulled into a nondescript parking lot that seemed to serve several nearby businesses – a bowling alley, some nightclub that wasn't open yet, and…
"Oh my God," Jim said, and laughed.
A 1950s diner covered the rest of the lot, and Jim grinned delightedly. Just as he had almost quoted word-for-word how he had asked Spock on their first date all those years ago, Spock had replicated the date itself – Jim had dragged him to a 1950s diner in Cedar Rapids and swept him off his feet over the biggest strawberry smoothie in the States. And okay, this wasn't a cardboard cut out mirror image of the diner - the dimensions were all wrong, and Jim was pretty sure the music being piped out over the parking lot was actually from the sixties, not the fifties, but...
But hell, it was like their real first date. Again. In Minneapolis.
"Do they do strawberry smoothies for dessert?" he asked.
"I believe that they do," Spock said as they got out of the car, and Jim reached for his hand before aborting the motion hastily. "Jim. If you wish to…" Spock held out his own, and Jim fitted their fingers together hesitantly.
"You sure? I mean, I don't want to make you uncomfortable, or attract any attention or anything," he fretted.
"I am not uncomfortable with this," Spock returned smoothly. "And this diner is run by a couple with three grown children, all of whom are homosexuals. They have no issues with same-sex couples."
"All three?" Jim whistled, momentarily distracted. "That's…that is statistical clustering. Or something."
"Indeed."
"How'd you find this place?"
Spock flushed faintly. "I…work with their eldest son."
Jim's grip tightened on his hand. "He asked you out, didn't he?"
"…Yes, approximately eight months ago."
"Did you?" Jim asked. "I mean, go out with him?"
"Once," Spock said, "but I realised that it was hopeless and unfair to him to pretend that I was 'over' you."
Jim squeezed his hand. "I'm sorry."
"It is unimportant now," Spock said, shrugging it off - as he seemed to shrug everything off with enviable, scary calm - as they stepped into the diner and were immediately waved to a seat by a distracted waitress.
The diner was busy, but they were granted a table in one corner, out of the main bustle of the place, and where they could speak without raising their voices, but also without being much overheard. Slowly, when the other customers ignored them and the waitress didn't bat an eyelash at them either, Jim relaxed enough to inch a hand over the table to grasp Spock's again, toying with his fingers almost idly as they talked, rubbing the pads of his fingertips into the warm skin and soaking up the contact like a sponge. A dry sponge. In a desert.
And just as he had on their very first date, Spock blushed just a little, but didn't otherwise react to the attention.
"Hey," Jim said suddenly, halfway through a salad starter. "You think…maybe this could be our new anniversary?" He checked his watch and hummed. "April twenty-third?"
"We could…cheat, and keep both," Spock offered, and Jim grinned.
"Cheat? You're proposing cheating?"
"It would give us five celebrations per year, reasonably evenly spaced. Your birthday, our new anniversary, my birthday, our old anniversary, and Christmas."
"Okay," Jim beamed. "Which reminds me – your birthday. I mean, obviously if we're still going good and everything's…everything's good, um…do you want to, er, to go somewhere? Like we used to?"
Spock paused, and tilted his head, that unreadable look back in his eyes. Studying. "Perhaps we will see."
"Okay," Jim said hastily. "Okay. It was just an idea. Um, I mean, that's probably a little soon…"
"Jim," Spock's hand twitched in his. "Stop worrying."
Jim flushed and ducked his head. "Truth?"
Spock cocked his head.
"I can't," Jim said. "I just can't. I'm too nervous of messing this up because…because you shouldn't have given me this second chance. You really, really shouldn't. It's so stupid of you and one day - I hope - one day we'll proper argue about it. But you did, and I can't help but think…I can't mess this up."
"If I agree to a second date, no matter how well this one may or may not go, would you agree to stop worrying?" Spock asked. He should have sounded as though he was cutting a devious deal – which he was – but he sounded, as always, perfectly even and almost monotonous. That, at least, had not changed, and probably never would.
"…Yeah, okay," Jim said, and cracked a genuine smile.
They kept the conversation light and easy from that point on, the only hint of the purpose of their being there the gentle, absent ghosting of Jim's fingers over Spock's hand, and the occasional exchanged look that made Jim understand what Sulu meant by his accusation of them being disgustingly in love. The calculating expression never left Spock's face, and he was not entirely open - although not struggling so much as he had in the beginning - but that giddy happiness had crept back into Jim's psyche, and he found that he didn't care. It was like falling in love all over again - too stoked, too utterly thrilled that Spock was here with him - to care about anything else.
They were quiet through the main course, apart from the odd incident of Jim stealing fries, and resumed conversation over ice cream desserts. Which gave Jim bad, insane, crazy images of getting ice cream and licking it off Spock's chest. (Which, surprisingly, he'd never actually done.) It turned slowly to Riverside and what Spock had missed, and Jim's meets in Kalona.
"I'm still going," Jim said. "I'm going to go even if I get right past it, just in case."
"I never thought…"
Jim looked up when Spock broke off, and frowned. "What?"
"I simply…never thought that you would actually give it up," Spock admitted. "It is perhaps why I did not think that we would be able to resume anything – I did not believe that you would stop drinking."
"Well," Jim shrugged and rubbed Spock's fingers. "I did. And I'm not going to start again. And…and one day you'll believe me – you really will."
"I think that I am beginning to," Spock murmured, and Jim beamed.
"Here," he said. "I'm promising you right now – whatever happens, I'm staying off the booze. It's…it's not even wholly for you anymore. I was a complete mess and I was just fucking up my life and if I'm going to be good at anything, I need to stay off it. So…you know, whatever happens? I'll be sober. No matter what."
Spock turned his hand over to hold Jim's hand in return.
"Maybe one day you'll believe that too," Jim said. "Sorry, sorry, that sounded completely bitter…"
"It is alright," Spock said quietly. "And I have learned that when you truly put your mind to something, it is extremely unlikely that you will fail at your endeavour. You have a…ruthless approach."
"Well, if I could get you back," Jim said, "then there mustn't be any no-win scenarios. So…yeah, I guess you're right."
"I do not know about 'no win scenarios.'"
"You got one?"
"I believe so," Spock said, and almost smiled. "The odds, for example, of my persuading you to stop riding that motorcycle."
"Touché."
Jim pulled the car up alongside Spock's box house, and put it into park without question.
"Thanks for agreeing to this," he said, undoing his seatbelt and twisting in his seat to face Spock properly. "It means a lot to me."
"As it does to me," Spock said. "It was a most enjoyable evening."
"Yeah," a slow smile spread across Jim's face. "Our second first date, just like the first one. Only I didn't get ketchup on my shirt. Or slip on the wet floor in the bathroom."
Spock didn't laugh, but Jim knew that he wanted to.
"So, same time next week?" Jim asked, his smile softening. "It's supposed to be sunny, and I have ideas. You up for it?"
"Indeed," Spock said.
"Okay, I'm going to cut the small talk, and just…yeah," Jim murmured, and leaned over to kiss him soundly, cupping his face in both hands and dragging Spock along to bliss with him. It was a long, involved kiss that was slow, in a way that was not quite usual for Jim, and he felt the oxygen being leeched from his brain as surely as if he was being suffocated.
Spock shifted forward to support their weight better, and slid both hands around Jim's chest, fingers sliding over his shoulder blades and tracing his muscles lightly through his shirt. Jim broke the kiss long enough to note that Spock's eyes were closed and his lips swollen, before resuming it and burying his fingers into that usually perfect hair.
"Second-best first date ever," he murmured into his mouth, and Spock shifted to stare at him, not half an inch from his face.
"Second?" he murmured.
"Mm," Jim sucked on his bottom lip briefly before he added: "Iowa trumps Minnesota any day."
"Good night, Jim."
